Misc Tips 1
How can I get the old PowerPoint 97 Slide View back?
Slide view in PowerPoint 2000 isn't the same as Slide view in earlier versions. If you prefer the old Slide view, you can get it back easily. Hold down the Control key while you click the Slide View icon at the lower left of your screen. To return to the new PowerPoint 2000 style Slide view, simply click the same icon again.
You can also customize the View menu choices to include the old-style Slide view:
* Right-click any toolbar and click Customize on the pop-up menu that appears (or choose Tools, Customize from the menu bar)
* Click the Commands tab of the Customize dialog box
* Click View in the Categories list
* Locate Slide in the Commands list
* Click Slide and hold down the mouse button while you drag it to the View menu. The cursor changes to an arrow with a plus sign
* When you reach the View menu, the View menu drops down. Drop the Slide item where you'd like it to appear on the View menu
* Click the Close button in the Customize dialog box
You can now choose View, Slide to put PowerPoint into the old-style Slide view.
The case of the missing menu item
PowerPoint 2000 tries to simplify your life by showing you an abbreviated set of menu items that features only the items most often used by most people. If you want to see the other available menu options, click the bottommost item on the opened up menu (it looks a little like a down-pointing arrowhead). PowerPoint remembers the menu options you choose and rearranges the menus on the fly so that your most-used menu choices are at the top of the drop-down menus.
When menu options change this way, it can be disconcerting. If you'd rather your menu options stayed put, here's what you can do:
* Right-click any toolbar and click Customize on the pop-up menu that appears (or choose Tools, Customize from the menu bar)
* Click the Options tab of the Customize dialog box
* Remove the checkmark next to Menus show recently used commands first
* Click the Close button
Now PowerPoint will show you all of the options on its menus
Learn keyboard shortcuts the easy way
Perhaps you're working on a laptop with a cranky pointing device or maybe you just like to use the keyboard instead of the mouse. PowerPoint has plenty of keyboard shortcuts to speed your work but it can be difficult to find them in the first place, and to memorize them once you've found them. PowerPoint 2000 has a kinder, gentler way of teaching you these handy shortcuts. You can have it show you the applicable keyboard shortcut for each of the toolbar buttons when it pops up Screen Tips, those handly little text boxes that pop up when you hover the mouse pointer over one of the toolbar buttons.
* Right-click any toolbar and click Customize on the pop-up menu that appears (or choose Tools, Customize from the menu bar)
* Click the Options tab of the Customize dialog box
* Put a checkmark next to Show ScreenTips on toolbars
* Put a checkmark next to Shortcut Keys in ScreenTips
* Click the Close button
Now move your mouse pointer over one of the toolbar buttons and hold it there briefly. The usual ScreenTip text pops up, but now it also includes the keyboard shortcut for the command as well (if any--not all toolbar buttons have keyboard shortcuts)
PowerPoint Speedup Tip
If you're working on a slower computer or just want to wring every ounce of speed you can out of PowerPoint, here's a trick to help it get a move on:
* Right-click any toolbar and click Customize on the pop-up menu that appears (or choose Tools, Customize from the menu bar)
* Click the Options tab of the Customize dialog box
* Clear the checkmark next to List font names in their font
* Choose (None) from the Menu animations drop-down list box
* Click the Close button
PowerPoint no longer shows the fontnames in the font toolbar button in the font they represent--it just shows you the font name. And since you turned off menu animation, it simply shows you the menus without any visual gimmicks.
Change PowerPoint's default file location
You don't really HAVE to store your PowerPoint files in My Documents if you don't want to. And you don't really HAVE to browse to a different folder every time you save if you prefer to save your presentations in some other folder than My Documents. You can have PowerPoint automatically save to any folder you like, on any drive you like.
* Choose Tools from the menu bar, then click Options.
* Click the Save tab in the Options dialog box
* In the Default file location text box, enter the complete drive and path to the folder where you'd like to store your presentations. Make sure that the folder has already been created before you do this.
There's no Browse button here to make it simple to point to the folder you want, but PowerPoint will warn you if you type in a non-existent or incorrect folder path here.
Now when you open or save a presentation, PowerPoint will automatically look first in your new default folder.
Have your presentations start in Screen Show view automatically
If you double-click a PowerPoint presentation's icon, PowerPoint opens the presentation for editing. Usually this is exactly what you want, but if you're giving a presentation from your computer in front of an audience, it's a little tacky to make them sit there while PowerPoint launches, shows it's splash screen, then opens your presentation in Slide view and finally you start the real show.
It would be SO much more professional looking if PowerPoint simply launched your presentation right into Slide Show mode, and in fact it'll do just that if you ask it to. Here's how to say "Please" in PowerPointish:
Open your presentation, then choose File, Save As from the menu bar.
Choose PowerPoint Show (*.pps) from the Save as type drop-down list box at the bottom of the Save As dialog box.
Click Save. PowerPoint saves your presentation as a PowerPoint Show (PPS) file.
When you double-click a PowerPoint Show file, PowerPoint launches it directly into Screen Show mode without even a hint that you're running PowerPoint at all. ClickClick -- On with the show!
If you prefer, you can accomplish the same thing by simply renaming your PowerPoint presentation file to give it a .PPS extension instead of the usual .PPT extension. The only difference is that if you rename instead of using Save As, you won't have an extra copy of the file on your hard drive (that is, one .PPT file and one .PPS). PPS and PPT files are identical. You can still open your PPS file in PowerPoint when you need to edit it.
How to edit AutoShapes
It's a lot simpler to edit a drawing or shape that's already created than it is to create one from scratch using PowerPoint's drawing tools. The Edit Points tool gives you some powerful editing capabilities for this, but there's one little problem: it's not available when you select an AutoShape. Here's what you need to do if you want to edit an AutoShape:
* Click your AutoShape to select it
* Choose Edit, Cut from the menu bar or press Ctrl+X to cut the AutoShape to the clipboard
* Choose Edit, Paste Special from the menu bar. The Paste Special dialog box appears.
* Choose Picture (Enhanced Metafile) from the As: list box then click OK. The AutoShape reappears on your slide.
* Right-click the AutoShape, point to Grouping, then click Ungroup from the pop-up menu.
* PowerPoint displays a message box warning that "This is an imported picture, not a group. Do you want to convert it to a Microsoft Office drawing object?" Click Yes.
The object is no longer an AutoShape, but a fully editable drawing object. You can now use the Edit Points tool or any of PowerPoint's other drawing tools to edit the object as you like.
Speed your work with PowerPoint's tear-off menus
It's quite easy to get to any of PowerPoint's many drawing and formatting features via the various pop-up menus and toolbars, but sometimes you find yourself repeatedly clicking to this, pointing to that, and choosing something from a pop-up menu. That can get old VERY quickly. The next time you're in that situation, take a closer look at the pop-up menu. Many of them have a thin gray bar at the top. For example, click the Draw button at the bottom left of your screen and point to Order.
Whenver you see this gray bar, it means that you can "tear off" the pop-up menu to convert it to a floating toolbar. SImply click and hold on the gray bar while you drag it to wherever you'd like it. The pop-up menu becomes a floating toolbar that you can position wherever you like. It stays on screen until you dismiss it by clicking the X in the upper right corner. You can also dock it with your other toolbars by dragging it atop one of them, just as you can do with any other floating toolbar.
Yes, Master!
When you want to make a change to the master template your presentation is based on, you can always open the View menu and choose Master, Slide Master or whichever other master you want to work with, but here's a faster way: Hold down the Shift key while you click one of the view icons at the lower left of your screen to go directly to the corresponding Master view. For example, hold down Shift and click the Slide View button to go directly to the Slide Master view. Click the same button without the Shift key held down to return to Slide view.
And here's another little trick: While you're in Slide Master view, press the PageDown key to go to the Title Master view. The PageUp key returns you to Slide Master.
Some templates don't include a Title Master. If yours doesn't and you'd like to add one, here's how
* Hold down the Shift key while you click the Slide View button as described above. That takes you to the Slide Master.
* Choose New Title Master from the Insert menu (or press Ctrl+M)
Your template now includes a Title Master that you can format as you like.
Slide Shows in a mini-window
How many times have you started your slide show for a run-through, only to notice some little problem that needs fixing? You have to stop the slide show, go back to edit mode, make the fix, start the slide show again and ... darn! Something ELSE that needs a little touchup.
Save yourself some time and energy: hold down the Ctrl key while you click the Slide Show button in the lower left corner of the screen. PowerPoint displays your slide show in a small window rather than full screen, which is neat, but here's the good part--when you find something you'd like to change, click back in the main PowerPoint window. The screen show window minimizes itself onto the Windows Task Bar. Navigate to the slide that needs editing, make your changes, then click the PowerPoint Slide Show button on the Task Bar to resume your mini-show right where you left off ... with your most recent changes in place.
Save time and start your slide show on the current slide
When you're working on a presentation, you can start it in Slide Show view by choosing View Show from the Slide Show menu (or by pressing the F5 key) but that always starts the show from the very beginning. That's tedious when you just want a quick look at the animations on Slide number 100 of a long show and have to plow through Slides 1 - 99 to get there. Instead, use the Slide Show View button at the lower left corner of your screen to start the slide show at the current slide rather than from the beginning.
Make the Format Painter tool earn its keep
The Format Painter tool's a great way to pick up the formatting (fill, outline color, etc.) you've used on one object and apply it to another. Just select the object whose formatting you'd like to pick up, click the Format Painter tool (it's the paintbrush icon on the Standard toolbar) then click any other object you'd like to apply the same formatting to.
There's only one problem: it's a one-shot deal. As soon as you apply the formatting, the Format Painter tool goes inactive. To use it again, you have to re-select an object and pick up its formatting attributes so you can apply them to another object.
If you want to apply the same formatting to a lot of objects, this isn't very productive.
Try this instead: select the object whose formatting you want to pick up, then DOUBLE-CLICK the Format Painter tool. Now you can apply formatting to as many other objects as you like. When you're done, press the Esc key or click the Format Painter tool again.
Use your PowerPoint graphics in other apps
You've created a magnificent chart or drawing in PowerPoint and now you need to use it on your web site, so you need to convert it to JPG or GIF format. No problem!
* Choose Save As from the File menu. The Save As dialog box appears.
* Pick the format you want from the Save as type drop-down list box. In this case, you'd pick either JPEG File Interchange Format (*.jpg) or GIF Graphics Interchange Format (*.gif).
* Enter a name in the File name text box and click Save. The name you type here becomes either a file name or a folder name depending on the option you choose next.
* PowerPoint displays a message box that asks "Do you want to export every slide in the presentation?" Click Yes if you want to export all of the slides in your presentation to sequentially numbered files or click No to export just the current slide.
If you clicked Yes in the previous step, PowerPoint exports all the slides in your presentation to files named Slide1, Slide2, Slide3 and so on. The file extension depends on the export file type you chose earlier. If you clicked No, PowerPoint simply exports the current slide to the file name you typed in the third step above.
For example, you have three slides in a presentation. You choose Save As, specify JPEG and type Website as the File name, then click Yes because you want to export all of the slides to JPEG format. PowerPoint creates a folder called Website and in it saves Slide1.JPG, Slide2.JPG and Slide3.JPG
Or let's say you only want to export one slide to JPEG. In this case you'd perform the same steps but click No when PowerPoint asks if you want to export the entire presentation. In this case it would export just the current slide to a file called Website.JPG
Enter your text--FAST!
When you really need to crank out a presentation in a hurry, enter the text for your slides first, then worry about fine-tuning the formatting on each slide. You can enter all the text like greased lightning this way:
* Start a new presentation or insert a new slide into an existing one
* Press Ctrl+Enter--this automatically selects the Title placeholder for editing. Enter your title text.
* Press Ctrl+Enter again--this selects the Body Text placeholder for editing. Enter your body text or bullet points.
* Press Ctrl+Enter again--since there are no more text placeholders on the current slide, this creates a new slide and selects the Title placeholder for editing, so you can begin entering the new title text immediately.
Ctrl+Enter--Title--Ctrl+Enter--Body Text--Ctrl+Enter--Title--Ctrl+Enter--Body Text ... in just a few minutes, you'll have all your text slides created and filled with text. A little formatting, save and you're on your way!
Format Replace Fonts
You've probably had this happen: you receive a presentation from somebody else, you open it to have a look and right away you notice that something's not quite right. The text looks misplaced or perhaps it doesn't line up exactly where it should.
Most often, this is because whoever created the presentation used a font that's not installed on your system. When you opened the presentation, PowerPoint substituted some other font in its place. If the substituted font isn't an extremely close match for the missing font, the appearance of the presentation will suffer.
The next time this happens, choose Replace Fonts from the Format menu. You'll see a Replace Fonts dialog box with two drop-down list boxes. The upper list box shows you all the fonts needed by the presentation, and displays a question mark icon to the left of any fonts that are needed but not available on your computer.
When you see a font with a question mark icon, you can do one of two things:
* Install the font, if you have it. There's no need to close the presentation or quit PowerPoint. As soon as you install the font, PowerPoint will recognize and use it.
* Substitute a different font that you know is a close match for the needed font. Click the missing font in the upper list box, then open the lower list box, which shows all the fonts installed on your computer, and choose the font you'd like to use in place of the missing one. Click Replace to have PowerPoint substitute the new font wherever the missing font is used in the presentation. Note that fonts in graphs, Word tables and other OLE objects will not be replaced.
How to use PowerPoint 97's templates in PowerPoint 2000
PowerPoint 2000 doesn't include all the same templates as PowerPoint 97. What if have a PowerPoint 97 template and need to use it in PowerPoint 2000? Here's how:
Start PowerPoint 2000 and open your PowerPoint 97 template (POT) file just as you'd open a regular (PPT) presentation file.
Without changing anything, immediately choose File, Save As from the menu bar. The Save As dialog box appears.
At the bottom of the dialog box, choose Design Template (*.pot) from the Save as type drop-down list box. As soon as you do this, you'll notice that the proposed folder in the Save in drop-down list box changes to Templates. If you're curious, pull down the list box to investigate where this mysterious Templates folder lives. You'll find that it's off your \Windows folder in \Application Data\Microsoft\Templates.
Click Save to save the template to this new location.
The next time you start a new presentation, you'll see the new template listed in the General tab of the New Presentation dialog box. It will also be included in the choices PowerPoint 2000 offers you in the Apply Design Template dialog box when you choose Format, Apply Design Template from the menu bar.
Why can't you just copy the original PowerPoint 97 template file to \Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates instead of opening it in PowerPoint 2000 and re-saving it? You can, but we recommend this method instead because there have been a few subtle changes in the template file format in past versions of PowerPoint. Opening older template files in PowerPoint 2000 and re-saving them ensures that they get updated to the latest format.
Creating your own tab full of design templates
In an earlier tip, we showed you how to update earlier-version PowerPoint template (POT) files for use in PowerPoint 2000 by opening them and re-saving them to the default \Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates folder. After you do this, the converted templates appear in the General tab of the New Presentation dialog box you see when you choose File, New from the menu bar.
Wouldn't it be nice if you could categorize these templates to make it easier to find the one you need? Well, you can! In fact, you can add your own tabs to the New Presentation dialog. Here's how:
Let's say that you want to create new tab called My Templates.
In Windows Explorer, browse to the \Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates folder.
Create a new folder under \Templates called My Templates
Copy your template files into the new \My Templates folder
The next time you choose File, New from the PowerPoint 2000 menu bar, you'll see your new My Templates tab in tne New Presentation dialog box, and when you click My Templates, you'll see all the the templates you copied into the \My Templates folder. Note that until you copy at least one template into your new folder, PowerPoint will not display a tab for it in the New Presentation dialog box.
How can I go to a particular slide in my PowerPoint 200 screen show? Quickly!
You can jump directly to any slide in your presentation if you know the slide number.
Just type the number of the slide and press the Enter key. PowerPoint hops directly to that slide.
You can use either the numeric keypad or the row of number keys above the regular alphabetic keys.
If you don't know the number of the slide you want to jump to, click the right mouse button anywhere on the screen to get a pop-up options menu. Point to Go then choose Slide Navigator, which shows you the title text of each of your slides. Click the title of the slide you want to jump to, then click Go To.
For an even quicker route to the slide you want, right-click the screen, point to Go, point to By Title, then click the title text of the slide you want.
Bingo. Instant gratification!
How can I pause my presentation and blank the screen?
Sometimes you need to pause in mid-presentation to answer a question from the audience or to discuss a side-issue. As long as your show isn't set to automatically advance, the answer is simple: just don't advance to the next slide!
But what if you want to project something else on the screen, a slide or overhead transparency, for example? Or perhaps you just want your audience to focus on something other the screen for a few minutes. You, for example. You're the star, after all!
The answer couldn't be simpler. At any time during your presenation, press the B key on your keyboard to have PowerPoint display nothing but an empty black screen. Press B again to bring your slide back into view, or press the space bar, N key or Down-Arrow to advance to the next slide.
If you prefer a blank white screen, use the W key instead.
How can I restart my slide show immediately?
If you need to restart your slide show from the beginning, hold down both the right and left mouse buttons for two seconds. PowerPoint will make a sound, then return you to Slide 1 of your presentation.
It's a little tricky to get both mouse buttons to click at the same time, and if you accidentally click the right button first, you're likely to see the slide show's pop-up menu. To avoid this, learn to click and hold the left mouse button first, then click and hold the right mouse button immediately afterward. It just takes a few tries to get the hang of it.
What do all these toolbar buttons DO?
If you're strictly a menu-driven PowerPoint user, you're missing out on all the shortcuts offered by the buttons on PowerPoint's many useful toolbars. You probably know that already, but perhaps you're having trouble figuring out what all those little pictures on the toolbars are supposed to mean.
There's a nice, painless way to gradually wean yourself off the menus and onto the toolbars, if you like.
As you choose your favorite menu commands, take a closer look at the menus themselves. Notice that quite a few of them have little icons next to the menu text. Each of these icons matches one of the icons on PowerPoint's toolbar buttons. Find the matching toolbar button icon and you've found out which toolbar button does the same thing as the matching menu command.
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